Anna Karenina - Part 1 - Page 4/119

"Are there any papers from the office?" asked Stepan

Arkadyevitch, taking the telegram and seating himself at the

looking-glass.

"On the table," replied Matvey, glancing with inquiring sympathy

at his master; and, after a short pause, he added with a sly

smile, "They've sent from the carriage-jobbers."

Stepan Arkadyevitch made no reply, he merely glanced at Matvey in

the looking-glass. In the glance, in which their eyes met in the

looking-glass, it was clear that they understood one another.

Stepan Arkadyevitch's eyes asked: "Why do you tell me that?

don't you know?"

Matvey put his hands in his jacket pockets, thrust out one leg,

and gazed silently, good-humoredly, with a faint smile, at his

master.

"I told them to come on Sunday, and till then not to trouble you

or themselves for nothing," he said. He had obviously prepared

the sentence beforehand.

Stepan Arkadyevitch saw Matvey wanted to make a joke and attract

attention to himself. Tearing open the telegram, he read it

through, guessing at the words, misspelt as they always are in

telegrams, and his face brightened.

"Matvey, my sister Anna Arkadyevna will be here tomorrow," he

said, checking for a minute the sleek, plump hand of the barber,

cutting a pink path through his long, curly whiskers.

"Thank God!" said Matvey, showing by this response that he, like

his master, realized the significance of this arrival--that is,

that Anna Arkadyevna, the sister he was so fond of, might bring

about a reconciliation between husband and wife.

"Alone, or with her husband?" inquired Matvey.

Stepan Arkadyevitch could not answer, as the barber was at work

on his upper lip, and he raised one finger. Matvey nodded at the

looking-glass.

"Alone. Is the room to be got ready upstairs?"

"Inform Darya Alexandrovna: where she orders."

"Darya Alexandrovna?" Matvey repeated, as though in doubt.

"Yes, inform her. Here, take the telegram; give it to her, and

then do what she tells you."

"You want to try it on," Matvey understood, but he only said,

"Yes sir."

Stepan Arkadyevitch was already washed and combed and ready to be

dressed, when Matvey, stepping deliberately in his creaky boots,

came back into the room with the telegram in his hand. The

barber

had gone.

"Darya Alexandrovna told me to inform you that she is going away.

Let him do--that is you--do as he likes," he said, laughing only

with his eyes, and putting his hands in his pockets, he watched

his master with his head on one side. Stepan Arkadyevitch was

silent a minute. Then a good-humored and rather pitiful smile

showed itself on his handsome face.